the Walter Cronkite school of
journalism at Arizona state
university.
Judy: Late today, the January 6
committee released transcripts
of three dozen of the more than
1000 interviews they conducted
in its
18 month long investigation into
U.S. Capitol attack.
Geoff Bennett has more.
Geoff: The report's release
tomorrow comes after committee
members held their final
business hearing, where they
referred former president Donald
Trump to the department of
justice on four criminal
charges, obstructing an official
proceeding, making false
statements, defrauding the U.S.
And inciting an insurrection.
Joining us to discuss what we
can expect in the full report is
January 6th committee member,
democratic congressman Jamie
Raskin.
It's good to have you with us.
We expected the full report to
be released today and learn late
in the day that it is actually
coming tomorrow.
What accounts for the delay?
>> I believe there were printing
issues at the government
printing office so it got pushed
into the evening and we decided
to just wait until tomorrow
early in the day.
Geoff: When that full report
does arrive, including the
transcripts and all the evidence
gathered over the last 18
months, how will that full
report expand the public
knowledge, the public
understanding of what transpired
on January 6, and who ultimately
bears responsibility?
>> It will supply a lot of
details and color to the basic
elements at the public already
understands.
Have a president of the united
States who refused to take no
for an answer from the American
people, who gave more than 7
million more votes to Joe Biden
than they did to Donald Trump.
The same margin that trump had
defeated Hillary by in 2016 in
which trump declared an absolute
landslide, but he wasn't going
to take no for an answer.
So he began a multipronged
assault on the election.
Try to get the legislatures to
overturn it.
The whole story is told in
detail in our report.
That doesn't mean we got
everything, because there were a
bunch of people blew off their
subpoenas are came in and took
the fifth amendment.
But we certainly understand
every basic element of the
assault on democracy and how 150
of our officers came to be
wounded and injured by the mob
that Donald Trump whipped up on
the.
Geoff: A question about
information sharing.
The January 6 committee is now
sharing evidence with federal
prosecutors who for months were
critical of the panel for
refusing to send over witness
interview transcript and other
information.
Why not share that information
earlier in the process?
>> We were working on her own
investigation.
These things are enormously
time-consuming.
Our staff was overburdened and
staggering under the weight of
the work as it was.
Made it clear we were going to
turn over to the department of
justice all relevant information
that they are seeking, and
indeed, we want the whole public
to be able to see exactly what
we've learned from this
bipartisan inquiry into the
worst violent domestic assault
on the peaceful transfer of
power in congress and the vice
president in our history.
Geoff: As you mentioned, four
Republicans were reported to --
referred to the ethics
committee.
The ethics committee is unique
in that the ship is divided
equally between Republicans and
Democrats.
Still, Republicans are set to
take control of the house and a
couple weeks time.
You expect this committee to
operate in a nonpartisan fashion
regarding these referrals?
>> No, I would not expect them
to operate in a nonpartisan
fashion.
I would expect them to operate
in a bipartisan fashion, because
I am realistic about that.
I do think there is a profound
problem proposed by members of
congress who received a
congressional subpoena to come
and testify about what they know
, who just blow it off and
refused to do that.
That is a very serious problem.
Congress issues subpoenas and we
expect people to comply with
them under the rule of law.
What does it do to the
credibility of congress and our
ability to enforce our own
subpoenas if we have members of
congress who don't even respect
that process enough to even show
up and at least assert some kind
of eagle immunity or
constitutional privilege if they
think they've got it?
Geoff: The executive summary
that came out this past week
does not address questions of
why the FBI, U.S. Capitol police
and other law enforcement
agencies didn't do more to
increase security on that day.
Will we get more clarity on that
issue when the final report
comes out?
>> The final report has a lot
more detail and analysis of
different things that people
said about that.
There clearly was information
coming in through different law
enforcement and intelligence
channels that there were going
to be large numbers of people
coming to Washington, and many
of them on the extremist
websites were saying that they
wanted to storm the capital or
attack the capitol or attack
officers and so on.
Of course the president of the
United States ultimately is the
chief of the executive branch of
government, but he had no
interest in defending us in this
case, as we saw on January 6
itself when the right was
actually underway, the attack on
his own vice president and
members of congress was
underway, and he did nothing.
He didn't get in touch with the
FBI, the joint chiefs of staff,
the police, and so on.
And other different individuals
did different things.
But overall, it was simply not
that she was not up to the task
of dealing with the size of the
crowd, the mob that came to
attack the capitol as incited by
Donald Trump.
So that is a serious problem
that we will have to look at.
None of that absolves or
exonerates Donald Trump in any
way of what he did, because he
was the one who unleashed the
whole sequence of events.
He called for the rally at the
exact same time congress was
meeting in the joint session
under the 12th amendment.
He became the first president in
American history to try to
assemble a crowd, quickly to
become a mob, to attack the
peaceful transfer of power.
He is the one who is responsible
for it.
It's like a bank robbery where
you've got the mastermind of a
bank robbery take place in the
bank is robbed and you ask
questions afterwards about
people who should've done
something differently.
All those are legitimate
questions, but none of them
absolve Donald Trump of his
central culpability in this
event.
Geoff: Thanks as always for your
time.